The first thing we had to do when beginning the exercise was make sure we were able to hear music when singing along; the song we were goign to use was 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart' by Elton John and Kiki Dee. To do this, we needed to tranfer the mp3 of the song from an iMac to a portable device such as a mobile phone or iPod. However, we managed to avoid this step, as we decided to filming in a classroom, meaning we could use YouTube to play a lyrics video of the song; this would play the song through the speakers, and also show the lyrics on screen at the correct time. This would enable us to sing the correct lyrics at the right time, meaning our lip syncing would be more believable.
After loading the video on YouTube, we set up the camera and tripod and were ready to film. We selected both Leon and Yemi to be in our video - they are not working with us in the actual project, but were part of our group for the preliminary exercise - but faced difficulties when they couldn't grasp the timing of the song. Therefore, we wasted a large amount of time trying to teach them the words and timing before realising that we wouldn't be able to complete the task. We quickly decided that myself and Sarah should perform the lip syncing, and quickly filmed the sequence. To make our lip syncing appear believeable, we had to sing aloud. This was rather embarrassing, and proved to be a problem. Therefore, we will try and work on this when filming our actual projects. After filming a shot of the two of us together, we realised we only had time to complete one more take. Ideally, we would have liked to have filmed an individual shot of myself and also Sarah, but settled on one of Leon dancing. We would then use this to separate the lip syncing when editing. We filmed in whole takes to make the editing process easier, and learning and refining this technique will help us create a music video of a high quality.
The editing process was largely different to last year, as we were not take small, individual segments from a longer take and placing them into the desired point of the timeline; by shooting longer takes, we were able to use the pen tool in Final Cut Express which shortened the time spent editing.
The pen tool allowed use to cut to clips placed below the top clip without cutting the take. This means that we can easily change how long shots are without potentially making mistakes.
Another advantage of editing vertically was being able to use split screen. For our exercise, we opted to use split screen to hide a part of the frame we did not want, and replace it with an image from another clip.
What We Learnt
- Shooting in whole takes makes the editing process considerably easier
- To lip sync effectively, we must sing the song out loud
- We must know the song thoroughly in order to get the best results
- Vertical editing is quick and simple once understood
- The pen tool is useful for changing the clip without cutting the original
- The pen tool is either perform straight cuts or dissolves, depending on where the points are placed on the clip
- Once placed on the correct point on the timeline, we must lock the layers so that any accidental changes are avoided
- We must be comfortable singing the song
- We must act whilst singing, otherwise the lip syncing will not look believable
- We must work quicker in order to meet our deadline without having to sacrifice the quality of our work
- We must practise and experiment with the other features of Final Cut Express such as the filters in order to gain the results we wanted
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